With yesterday’s post I feel like I made a pretty significant deposit into the “serious sports talk” bank account that we like to maintain here at Midwest Sports Fans. And that can only mean one thing: it’s time to become a “real” sports fan for a moment and dabble in something juvenile, immature, and sophomoric.

Thus, it gives me great pleasure on this fine Wednesday morning to present you with the greatest name in the history of the NFL Draft:

That’s right. Dickless Riffle. A back out of Albright chosen with the 12th overall pick by the Philadelphia Eagles. (So…do you think when Eagles call T.O. “dickless” that they are really just paying homage to their old time second-round pick? No? Okay, me either.) I defy you to find another name that even comes close to packing the humor, irony, and complete ridiculousness of this one.

It should be noted that I looked for secondary confirmation of the existence of Dickless Riffle. However, all I was able to find was another website that had essentially just copy/pasted the Wikipedia table for the 1938 draft. So I’m trusting Wikipedia that Dickless Riffle is not just someone’s idea of a joke inconspicuously slipped into a random draft chart from the Early Era of the NFL, found only because of freak sports bloggers who research this stuff at 12:30 in the morning.

As you will see below, the genesis for this post was actually something legitimate and informative. We have created a table listing the #1 overall draft pick for every professional football draft since 1936. During the course of going to the Wikipedia page for each individual draft to get all of the information I needed for the table, I stumbled across more than a few interesting names. Without question, Dickless Riffle is the greatest.

How in the hell do you get a name like Dickless? I have to assume that it did not have the same context back then that it does now. Or perhaps his name was Richardfewer and he just wanted to shorten it. Or perhaps his parents really wanted a girl and simply could not accept the fact that little Dickless had man parts, so they gave him a name in hopes that it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It would make a great band name, don’t you think? Or a stage name for an effeminate male singer who wears tight pants and hits high notes with ease. I can see the marquee now: Dickless Riffle and the Morsels of Tenderness, like tonight at The Vogue.

And I’ve officially taken this too far.

Anyway, before we jump into the all-time list of #1 overall NFL draft picks, here are a few other names from the Early Era of the NFL that I thought were…entertaining:

My goodness, who knew that the old school NFL drafts were such a rich source of humor? I had no idea. Anyway, I have to cut myself off there as actual work beckons.

Before I go, here is the all-time list of #1 overall NFL draft picks. My apologies for diverting so far off track from what this post was originally intended to be. But come on — Dickless Riffle? It was just too much ignore.